Model Cities and the City Fathers

THE PEOPLE at the Cambridge Model Cities Bureau have the somewhat annoying yet highly infectious tendency to see themselves as enlightened visionaries battling valiantly against the power-hungry forces of Cambridge City Hall.

The people at City Hall, in turn, see themselves as the last outpost of fiscal responsibility combatting narrow-minded self-interest on the part of local factions. They view Model Cities as a group that doesn't have to return regularly to the electorate, and therefore is free to spend federal money on any proposal designed to benefit people in the Model Cities area.

Two weeks ago forty staff workers and a dozen members of the Cities Demonstration Agency (CDA) Board invaded City Hall, hoping to confront and pin down City Manager John Corcoran and City Solicitor Philip M. Cronin on three specific issues-two contracts and Model Cities pay raises-that illustrated the clash of power over the program.

The concept of Model Cities was introduced as an early "War on Poverty" scheme to infuse large sums of money into eight selected cities. Logrolling in Congress modified that original idea, transforming it into a less-intensive aid program to more than 150 cities. The enabling legislation was approved and Cambridge was one of the first cities to enter the program.

In its first one and a half years, Cambridge Model Cities has originated a wide variety of programs, including rehabilitation and construction of housing units, job training, a family center, a free dental clinic, services to the elderly, two day care centers, adult education and a pre-teen center.

The basic hope of the planners was that depressed neighborhoods could improve themselves with a minimum of outside professional direction. Model Cities is a confrontation-oriented structure, designed to experiment with a wide range of neighborhood assistance proposals, spin off the ones that work, and let the people of a selected area run the organization itself.

Ostensible control over Model Cities is vested in a 24-member CDA Board. Sixteen of the Board members are residents of the model neighborhood, elected for two-year terms. The remaining board members are drawn from various constituencies outside the neighborhood. The relevant portion of the CDA enabling legislation empowers the board to "hire, fire, select, and set the terms of employment for its staff, with the approval of the City Manager."

The Model Cities Board in Cambridge contains some fiery people who are not the least bit intimidated by Corcoran's intransigence or Cronin's retorts during the sit-in. The real issue, it seemed, was deeper than the two contracts and the pay raise that had been lying dormant on Corcoran's desk for weeks. To them, it was a question of power. Conflicting interpretations of the CDA enabling legislation asked "Who is going to exercise the authority over Cambridge Model Cities, the Board or the City Manager?"

In response to Cronin's opinion stating that "the Board acts merely in an advisory capacity. The City Manager is not a rubber stamp. He has the power to eliminate the Board at any time," the CDA personnel have quickly mobilized.

For the past week, virtually the entire staff has been going door to door in the model neighborhood, trying to rally constituent support for their power clash with City Hall. They have been ringing doorbells, collecting signatures on a petition backing the CDA board, and talking to the people they are trying to serve, finding the problems they are supposed to combat. And in the process of campaigning for "Resident control for Cambridge Model Cities," the staff members are uncovering some interesting facts.

First of all, there is no resident control for Cambridge Model Cities. There never has been, and there probably never will be. The program has been directed from above, like all other bureaucracies, and the overwhelming majority of the people who supposedly "run" the program have returned a verdict of massive indifference and ignorance concerning Model Cities.

They know nothing about the program, expect nothing from it, and are generally unaware of any of the numerous CDA services, with the interesting exception of the 60,000 plastic garbage bags distributed free throughout the area.

The professional staff members (who, incidentally, are already well-compensated, the pay raise issue notwithstanding) are excellent people. By and large, they are as creative, as socially concerned, and as sensitive a group as could ever be assembled in city government.

But the fact remains that they are not products of the area they serve. They have been imported with their carpetbags, and in spite of claims that the CDA Board members are the guiding force, it is the top staff personnel who run the show.

This probably is the way it ought to be. I can hold little hope for any attempt for true full-time neighborhood control over programs to serve the neighborhood. These are working class people who have neither the time, the inclination, nor the training to pilot a comprehensive program of day care or job training or youth counseling toward a desired abstract goal. Furthermore, it is always risky to turn the public purse over to a small group, telling them to help themselves.

The issue transcends even the question of political power. Cambridge Model Cities will inevitably be run either by a group of professional outsiders on the CDA staff, or by a group of professional outsiders from City Hall. The structure makes very little difference.

The people who fill the structure, however, make a great deal of difference. The conflict is as simple as the fact that the CDA staff is comprised of liberals who want to expand the scope and responsibility of city government in social welfare; while City Hall is dominated by conservatives who are afraid to extend the fiscal involvement of the city.

This is not a question of political power; that question has already beensolved. It is a clash of ideologies, and in the balance hangs a variety of potentially brilliant programs to aid the aged, the children, the poor and the working class.

The crucial matter here is not one of who will direct the Cambridge Model Cities program, but the more immediately relevant one of in what direction it will be directed.

Robert J. LeBlanc, the young assistant to Corcoran, gave his office's viewpoint that "legally the City Manager cannot obligate the city for this kind of future expenditure. It simply exceeds our power."

In reply, Robert B. Williams, the Executive Director of the CDA staff, commented, "That may be called fiscal responsibility, but if you think about it, it's also pretty damn repressive."

Cambridge Model Cities is doing some great things, and given the opportunity, it should do more. This is precisely what City Hall fears most-that successful programs will develop their own lives, and that once Model Cities fades out of the picture, the city government may have to pick up the slack with ever-increasing expenditures further straining the budget.

Model Cities, it should be noted, operates on a five-year schedule. After 1973 there will be no federal funds to support CDA services, and if the people want these services continued, responsibility will devolve upon City Hall. Local politicians don't want to spend that much money, and consequently they put the squeeze on Model Cities now, effectively shutting out any more successful programs from starting.

The squeeze, however, comes from above as well as below. Model Cities is funded by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Nixon administration has wrought a reversal of policy within HUD. In line with "New Federalism"-and also in line with lower priorities for social welfare legislation-HUD has increasingly accented the role of city government in CDA decision-making, as opposed to neighborhood action. Cambridge, which at least on paper provides for more local control than any other Model City in the country, was a logical target for the re-alignment process.

The concept of resident control, in fact, was doomed from the start-a glorious idea that simply couldn't work. The major benefits from CDA have not diffused to all neighborhood residents-although the Cambridge project is the second smallest in the country. The ones who benefit from Model Cities services are the aggressive types, the go-getters, the volunteers-precisely the ones who need assistance the least.

The CDA staff should have gone into the community long ago, and it is ironic that only in a desperate attempt to save its life is it fulfilling the purpose for which it was set up. Had there been the type of community interaction originally envisioned, the present crisis might have been averted.

A lot of good things can be done in the Cambridge Model Cities neighborhood and some of them are already beginning. The fundamental question becomes, "How far can we go?" This is the issue the Model Cities people should be talking about, and this is the crucially important decision for the future-not a rhetorical slogan that tries to capitalize on nonexistent local autonomy.

It is unfair and unethical to use the people of the model neighborhood as pawns in the clash of ideologies, but that is what is being done.

The tragedy of the situation is the bleakness of the future. By trying to rally support, and by forcing the issue, the CDA only hastens the inevitable final showdown. And when that confrontation comes, the City Solicitor and the City Manager can legally opine them right out of existence.

The Model Cities staff has thrown itself into a seemingly unresolvable dilemma. The harder they work, the sooner they die. Perhaps a sudden flare-up is preferable to a lingering death, but some residents disagree, and the staff itself is divided. The Model Cities agency can do a lot of good things in Cambridge, but when it becomes so enmeshed in politics and ???